The present invention relates to training individuals to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and relates particularly to a manikin useful in providing such training.
Manikins have been used for years for training individuals to perform mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration and closed chest heart massage, known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, and for instruction in rescue breathing where heart failure is not a factor. In the past such manikins have been built in several pieces often including hollow shells of somewhat flexible and resilient materials, with various tubes, bellows, air bladders, valves, and pressure sensors housed within the shells. Articulation of head and neck portions has been accomplished through use of various swivel or hinge joints interconnecting separate parts. Such complexity of manikins provides some realism in the simulation of performing rescue breathing and CPR using such manikins, but adds considerably to the initial cost and to the cost of maintaining such manikins.
The complexity of such previously available manikins thus makes such manikins undesirably expensive, and creates an undesirable limitation on the availability of CPR training.
While the sensible feedback provided by complex CPR and rescue breathing training manikins available in the past may be instructive and reassuring, it is not essential to providing useful and valuable training in CPR. What is essential is merely that an opportunity be available to practice mouth-to-mouth breathing techniques and chest compression methods, without danger of injury or disease. While Kohnke U.S. Pat. No. 4,801,268 discloses a manikin capable of such function, it, too, is more complex than is necessary.
A common reason for performing rescue breathing and CPR is the so-called "cafe coronary" where a person chokes on a piece of food, and so it is desirable to teach techniques, such as the Heimlich maneuver, for clearing a person's airway to permit breathing. It is therefore desirable for a CPR training manikin to be useful for instruction in proper use of the Heimlich maneuver.
What is needed, then, is a CPR training manikin, on which mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing and closed chest heart massage can be practiced, which is inexpensive, durable, easily cleaned, and low in requirements for maintenance and repairs.